Publishers need to go back to basics

This episode is sponsored by Piano

The essential challenge for publishers is similar to most businesses: find a way to control their relationship with the customer. 

That means going back to basics, argues Trevor Kaufman, CEO of Piano, and giving people reasons to come directly to publishers. Too often published have chosen audience development tactic — fish where the fish are, etc — over sound business strategies, Trevor told me on the Rebooting Show ahead of this week’s Piano Academy in Paris.

“Fundamentally, creating a loyal audience that shows up at your front door; that’s the business of publishing. And we get too distracted with a pivot to video, or apps, or Facebook, or AI, instead of asking what it means to be a subscriber, a member of this brand.” 

Other issues we discussed:

• The “original sins” of publishing: giving away content to Google for free and letting intermediaries seize the advertiser relationship

• Why publishing is near the top of industries ranked by “complexity per dollar” of revenue

• How Piano has evolved into managing the entire subscriber journey, from ad-block prompts to newsletters to bundles.

See The Rebooting's recent "total monetization" research report done in collaboration with Piano.